Me: Explained

20092013

A quick review of what has happened/is happening since last I posted:

The Sharks beat the table-topping Roosters 32-22 (after leading 26-0 at halftime). They beat the Cowboys in week one of the finals 20-18 and were awarded the controversial 7-tackle try to Beau Ryan in the first half. And we now meet the Sea-Eagles in tonight’s do-or-die clash and will unfortunately be without key playmaker Todd Carney.

On the music scene, not much has changed. Still haven’t been to a concert since I saw the Mentals at New Years. Although tomorrow night I am going up to Sydney to see Steve Kilbey and the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra.

On the academic front though, things have never been so grim. Having struggled through my first year (which was actually all second year subjects) of journalism, I dropped back to Media and Communication (BCM) thinking “well I developed a bit of a foot hold in that last year and it still leaves me open to a few options, so I’ll slide on back to that”. Boy was I in for a shock.

Having been told upon my transfer from Shoalhaven Uni that I only needed to do well at the subjects I was told (which in scoring an average of 70% across all the said subjects, I was told that I was doing well) and then could apply to transfer straight to second year journalism.

I did that. But when I struggled with journalism, I was told I should’ve done the 1st years subjects, but some of the important ones weren’t running again until the next autumn session (i.e. – 12 months away). So I went back to BCM.

Upon my return to BCM, it dawned on me how messed up my situation was. One of my tutors asked me if I had or was currently undertaking any DIGC classes. I said ‘no’, as I was not told about them when transferring. The tutor then stressed the importance of these classes which meant that I was now both behind in journalism and BCM, and to start either again would mean another 3 years at uni, taking my total to 6 years at uni and only 1 degree. And I’d also be about 3 years older than those who were good enough to make the grade straight out of high school, but with the same or less experience. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be guaranteed a job when I left.

So is it worth starting again and staying on wasting even more money that I don’t yet have?

Which is why I can now say “I’m a uni drop-out”. And because I don’t have any foresight at all, I’m now screwed.

I am saw an ad a while back now for care workers, and since I’ve seen it, I’ve never ruled it out as a possibility. I have friends (even friends of friends) in aged care and they all tell me they love it (which is kind of encouraging for me).

But knowing my dad, he won’t be happy (as you may guess I haven’t told him yet), citing that I should’ve got a trade in the first place. Before I found myself in this situation, I’d have argued that he never really pushed me in any particular direction, but slowly and surely, some memories of him trying to do so are coming back. So I can’t use that argument when I get round to telling him.

What I might be able to do though, maybe, is say that he kept telling me things were/are easy and expected perfection on the first attempt at anything. I don’t think he quite grasps the concept of ‘this is my first time, I’m a learner’. Because I’m not the most practical person, I take a little bit longer to do things right. But that extra time and caution doesn’t cut it with my dad, so I shy away from many practical tasks around the house.

So I don’t know if a trade is right for me. What if a similar thing happens that happened at uni? About the only trade that I could see myself doing is becoming a painter (I haven’t researched it yet so this is just based on brief outside observations). You don’t have to worry about constructing anything (“Oh no! I got the angle wrong! And the planks aren’t long enough”, said no painter ever. “I forget. What do the different colours on the capacitor mean again?”, said no painter ever).

Not only that, I did get some brief experience painting a wall back in high school. We didn’t have the best brushes for the job, but I will admit, it was kind of fun. So maybe I’ll have to do some research, because I don’t know how in demand the painting profession is these days.

To sum up: this could very well be my last post, as I have deleted my twitter account and the next step is this. So thank you for reading.